Kılıçdaroğlu repeats call to PM for TV debate

The leader of the main opposition party, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, repeated his call to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to have a debate on live television and added that Erdoğan is rejecting his challenge because he knows he will be defeated.

“He won't do it. Why? Because he knows that I will disconcert him,” Kılıçdaroğlu said in Ankara's Şereflikoçhisar district in an election meeting prior to the approaching June 12 general elections.

Explaining his promises to the public if he is elected, the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) said that his party is for cheaper gasoline and family insurance under which there will be an income of TL 600 monthly for every family.

“We need your support to build the future of Turkey,” he said as quoted by the Cihan news agency. He has also been critical of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) because its leader, Erdoğan, talks about his projects for 2023.

“Babies die in the arms of their mothers even though we're in the 21st century, and you talk about 2023,” he said.

Kılıçdaroğlu's most popular plan promises a family insurance program whereby every family would receive TL 600 in monthly payments, which could rise to TL 1,250 depending on extenuating circumstances. Another goal Kılıçdaroğlu has set for his party if it comes to power is to increase Turkey's per capita income -- which currently stands at $10,000 -- to $31,500 by 2023. According to Kılıçdaroğlu's ambitious plan, Turkey's gross national product (GNP) would rise to $2.6 billion in the same year.

He also promised to lower Turkey's election threshold for parliamentary representation to below 10 percent and to create 800,000 new jobs every year. The CHP's annual growth target for the Turkish economy is 7 percent.

In his Kırıkkale meeting on Monday, Kılıçdaroğlu asked retired people not to vote for the AK Party.

“Most of the people who are of working age have left Kırıkkale. This is a city of retired people as there are 51,000 retired people in Kırıkkale. There is a park that they go to because they do not have money to drink tea in the town's tea house. This is what the AK Party did to retired people,” he said as quoted by the Anatolia news agency.